


Vox Diaboli

by RiverDelta



Category: Fallout (Video Games)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-24
Updated: 2016-06-24
Packaged: 2018-07-18 00:08:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 852
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7291681
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RiverDelta/pseuds/RiverDelta
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What if Arcade Gannon, educated slave to Caesar, was picked over Legate Lanius as to who would be the emperor in the case of Caesar's death?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Vox Diaboli

It was twenty years past the dawn of the 24th century. Julius Caesar Nero Californius, emperor of Caesar’s Legion stood in his tent, adjusting old glasses and running a hand through hair that had long since begun to gray.

He looked down at Legate Lanius, a giant of a man who, too, had begun to feel the effects of age. The latter spoke. “Caesar, it is time to end your madness.” He drew the Blade of the East, and stood up.

Nero, however, simply sighed. “We talked about this. If I go, you will not be able to hold the Legion together, and the NCR will end up victorious. You’re a good soldier, but can you organize the rites of the gods? Keep Legion trade routes running? Oversee the lives of the citizens of Flagstaff and the other cities, towns, and villages of the empire?”

There was a brief silence. “None of those things are necessary. In 2281 the Legion was a weapon, Caesar. Nothing less than the ultimate fighting force. Caesar knew that.” Nero laughed a bit. “ _ Auribus teneo lupum.  _ Caesar held a wolf by the ears. It just wouldn’t work out. It was a time bomb.”

“Then what do you expect, Nero? That your plan of becoming like them is going to work? We are not the New California Republic. We are the Legion.” Nero adjusted his glasses, stepped a few feet away from the armed man, and looked down at him, his eyes narrowing.

“We are the Legion, and I am your emperor. I was hand-chosen by Caesar himself in 2287 after your spectacular failure at Hoover Dam, and I advocated to keep you around. He was going to have you crucified. I thought you were good at what you did, so I argued otherwise. Nonetheless, I am your emperor, and my word is law. Sheathe your blade.” Nero, or Arcade Gannon, as he used to be known, took alarm at how easily he fell into this bookish and haughty manner of speaking. 

Lanius sighed, sheathed his blade, and begun to walk out of the tent. “Just another  _ brutum fulmen. _  Empty threat. _ ”  _ Nero whispered to himself, sitting at his desk and beginning to write a letter to someone who he assumed had been dead by now.

He collected these letters in his own files, and did not send them. They were simply a literary exercise. For privacy’s sake, they were written in Latin, not in English. He dipped a quill into a pot of ink, and begun.

_ Dear Courier Six, _

_ Thank you for selling me into slavery. _

He always begun his letters this way. Something about the irony. It was at first stinging, but as with so many other things in his life, Nero eventually saw it as a joke of some kind, albeit a sick one.

_ You’ll be interested to hear that Flagstaff’s water caravans run on time again, that the initiative to establish patrician and plebeian classes, and reduce military service to not cover the entire lives of nearly everyone, has gone well.  _

_ Most of the news I hear of you is of Vulpes Inculta, and I assume he’s been making things up for the past twenty years. As I’ve said. Lanius attempted to murder me, but his heart really didn’t seem to be in it, and eventually he’ll die and I can actually start changing things. _

_ Hopefully soon. I’m considering iocane powder in his wine. _

_ I hope to see you soon, _

He did not.

_ Julius Caesar Nero Californius, or Arcade Gannon. _

He let the ink dry and left the letter on the desk, moving back to his throne, a venerable old seat that had existed since the days of the original, if Edward Sallow could be called “original” about anything he did, Caesar.

He motioned for his guard to leave the tent so he could change into the old pre-War pajamas he wore to sleep (it wasn’t exactly Roman, but neither was the lab coat he often wore, and he was usually the only man in the room to know that there was a Rome), and, as he put on his pajama pants, he looked at his stomach.

A long, jagged scar where he had tried to gut himself in 2281. It was mostly healed, and just a pinkish line, but it still stung. The blade simply had not cut deeply enough. He had aborted the suicide attempt in the middle of it. He wondered as he lay on his bed, behind the throne. What would that Arcade Gannon say to his works?

Would he be thankful that someone sane was fixing the Legion? Helping the women, the slaves, the petty soldiers? Or would he just see Arcade in Enclave officer’s gear, goose-stepping like the rest of them? Would it even matter that the Legion was a nation, now? He told himself that that Arcade was a different man, one not given succession for his intellectualism, wit, and knowledge of a dead language. Time changes us, power moreso. His place was not with doctors and researchers anymore.

  
Arcade Israel Gannon, friend of the Courier, would puke.


End file.
